Remarks about some astrological techniques.

I am interested in both: astronomy and astrology. Astronomy is very useful - I know what are right ascension, declination, local time or ephemeris time. It also gives me a different point of view at astrological techniques. I have some questions and doubts and I would like to present them.

Atmospheric refraction.

Refraction is a bend of light in Earth's atmosphere. It causes cosmic objects to be seen a bit higher than they really are, this effect is maximal near the horizont where it exceeds 0.5°. Due to refraction e.g mean day is a bit longer than mean night, polar days are longer than polar nights and there are thin zones (on both hemispheres) where there are polar days and no polar nights. What are implications for astrology? If we assume that astrological interactions are carried by electromagnetic waves (we can exclude gravitation because effects of furniture would be greater than effects of planets) we would need to move the ascendant a bit forward and descendant a bit backward, so ascendant and descendant would not be in opposite points. There would be also differences in other houses, only MC (and IC) would be in the same point.

Geocentric parallax.

Parallax is caused by the fact that Earth has finite radius and distances to cosmic objects are also finite. An example: we are somewhere and we see some objects, e.g. a lamp exactly in North direction. If we move a bit (not in North or South directions) the lamp will not be in North, it will shift a bit. The same story with planets - if we look from different places on the Earth's surface, their positions will be also different. Difference is proportional to inverse distance to an object so maximal error is for the Moon - it may exceed 1°. For the Sun and planets it will be not greater than 33" (for Venus, for other bodies even less). Maximum error is when an object is near the horizont. I think that if our reference frame is the place of birth (and not the Earth's center or center of the Earth-Moon system) we should include that - but, however, it would not make astrologers' life easier.

Type of coordinates.

Usually in ephemerides there are two types of coordinates: geometric and apparent. Geometric positions are obtained by calculating planetary positions exactly in that moment. Unfortunately, in order to see them we must wait some time for their light and in fact we see apparent positions instead of geometric ones (this shift is called light aberration). In order to use geometric coordinates we would have to assume that astrological interactions have infinite speed and it would be in contradiction with the Special Relativity (maximal speed is the speed of light in vacuum). Fortunately, the difference is not very big and it should not exceed 1'. This problem was discussed by Janusz Nawrocki in [1].

Apogee.

Some astrologers think that planet's influence is enhanced when it is in its apogee or the point the most distant from the Earth [2]. And they quote numbers that, in their opinion, are ecliptic longitudes of planetary apogees. They are wrong! They quote longitudes of aphelia or the points where orbits of planets are most distant from the Sun. Moreover, they are heliocentric values. Only the Moon has its apogee but it moves approximately 2 times faster than the Moon's Node in opposite direction (some astrologers include so-called Black Moon that has the same longitude although it is not the same point as apogee). For the Sun we may introduce apogee in such way: take longitude of Earth's aphelium and substract 180° (now it is about 23° Cancer and it increases by 1° 43' in a century). For planets it is complicated and there may be 2 types of apogee: I must note that it was described by Gouchon [3] but he made a mistake when describing absolute apogea - he neglected the fact that Earth's orbit is also an ellipse.

Nodes.

Similar story with nodes. Let me remind that node of an orbit is the point where planet's orbit meets with ecliptic (plane of Earth's orbit). Many astrologers include them but there is no agreement about their meaning [2], [3], [4]. And again, all of them quote values but ... heliocentric. In fact, a planet is in its node when its ecliptic latitude is zero. Only Moon's nodes are described correctly (their positions are published in ephemerides but there also some doubts - I will describe them in the next paragraph).

Nodes mean or true?

In most ephemerides there are published positions of Moon's nodes but, however, usually they are mean ones. True positions may be a bit different and they may be calculated using approximate formula

NNt = NN - 1.6° sin( 2 NN - 2 SO )

where NNt is the true position of the Moon's N Node, NN is the mean position and SO is the mean longitude of the Sun (there may be used the true longitude, difference does not exceed 2°). Similar story with the Moon's apogee (and the Black Moon) but the formula is much more complicated and the difference may exceed 20°. Similar story with nodes and aphelia of planets (but differences are much lower).

Differences between hemispheres.

In all known to me methods of estimation of planets' power planets with positive (or Northern) declination are stronger. It sounds reasonable - they are higher in the sky, they are longer above the horizont - but it is correct for the Northern hemisphere. At the Southern hemisphere it should be opposite. Excellent, but what about people born at Equator? Maybe planets with zero declination should be stronger?

Houses in sub-polar zones.

Thanks to Kazimierz Urbanczyk from Cracow for calling my attention to this problem. What is the matter? Near poles there are problems with traditional houses - e.g. ascendant cannot reach some ecliptic longitudes - e.g. at the Northern Pole ascendant is always in 0° Libra, at the Southern one in 0° Aries, and the Midheaven is not defined at these points (because poles are common points of all meridians...).

Cusp of house and its beginning.

Next problem: where is the beginning of a house? At its cusp (traditional attitude), at the cusp of previous house (due to Schneider-Gauquelin's work [5]) or between (e.g. Mariusz Karlinski [5], and it seems to sound reasonable). Of course, there is also other problem: which system of houses?

Interpretation of planets at borders of signs and houses.

The title is very clear: should we take sharp borders or maybe there are some zones of influence, if so - how deep they are? Is it the same for signs and houses?

Ecliptic latitude.

In Urbanczyk's opinion, we should pay attention only to the stars that are not far from the ecliptic. If we go a bit further, we can say that force of aspect should decrease when difference of ecliptic latitudes increases or e.g. one of the objects is in neighbourhood of one of the ecliptic poles - in such case even tiny shift may cause big difference in ecliptic longitudes, at the poles ecliptic longitude is not defined so it is difficult to define aspects.

Declination and ecliptic latitude.

Next question: why parallel is an aspect of declination instead of ecliptic latitude? And, if so, what about the other equatorial coordinate, right ascension: does it have any astrological meaning?

The moment of birth.

Next problem: what is the moment of birth? The first cry (tradition), first breath (due to H. Diehl [6]) or something else?

Stars.

Which stars are important? In traditional astrology the most important are the brightest stars (or: the stars with the greatest apparent magnitude, it may be expressed in terms of energy flux that reaches Earth). In such case the strongest star would be Sirius. But, if so, we should include all stars brighter than, let us say, magnitude 4.0 (the weakest stars included in astrology have similar magnitude). Unfortunately, it would increase number of stars to about 500 - quite big number. And next question: what about variable stars? A good example is Algol (very important in astrology): its magnitude varies from 2.2 to 3.5; an extreme case is Mira (omicron Ceti): its magnitude varies from 2.0 (brighter than Polaris) to 10.1 (available for telescopes only). Is there any difference between eclipsing varibles (like Algol) and physical variables (like Mira)? By the way: brighter stars have lower magnitudes, the reason is that in Ancient times stellar magnitudes were marked from 1 to 5 in such way that the brightest stars had the 1st magnitude and the weakest stars (available to naked eye) had 5th magnitude.

Directions.

I do not use directions but many astrologers do. And a question: what is the right angle to shift stars in 1 year? There are many possibilities [6]: 1°, 0° 59' 8" (mean Sun's motion in a day), daily Solar motion in the day of birth or maybe for n years the angle is equal to the way done by the Sun in n days after birth (it is a bit different than the previous angle because the Sun changes its angular velocity a bit)? There are also other, more exotic possibilities. Moreover: what is a year? I think that it should be 1 tropical year (365.2422 days, period of Earth's rotation around the Sun after including the precession).

As we see, there are a lot of questions. And I think that the good answer may be given by statistical research only, not by speculations.

Bibliography.

[1] Janusz Nawrocki Efemerydy planet 1920-2020 (Planetary Ephemeris 1920-2020). Studio Astropsychologii, 1994.
[2] Tadeusz Wrotkowski Teoria dominanty (Theory of the dominant). Problemy Astrologii (1980), Stowarzyszenie Astrologow w Poznaniu.
[3] Henri J. Gouchon Dictionnaire Astrologique, Dervy-Livres, 1986.
[4] Dariusz Proskurnicki Wybrane techniki astrologiczne (Selected astrological techniques). Problemy Astrologii (1988-1989), Stowarzyszenie Astrologow w Poznaniu.
[5] Françoise Gauquelin Tajemnica niezgodnosci tradycyjnej domifikacji z wynikami badan empirycznych wyjasniona? (The Mystery of the Disagreement Between Traditional Domification and Results of Empirical Research Explained? - a shortened translation of the article: The Greek Error or Return to Babylon, The Schneider-Gauquelin Research Journal, IX 1985). Problemy Astrologii (1986-1987), Stowarzyszenie Astrologow w Poznaniu.
[6] Rafal T. Prinke, Leszek Weres Mandala zycia (Mandala of the Life). Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1982.

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